Increased water deficit decreases Douglas fir growth throughout western US forests
Christina M Restaino, David L. Peterson, Jeremy S. Littell
2016, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (113) 9557-9562
Changes in tree growth rates can affect tree mortality and forest feedbacks to the global carbon cycle. As air temperature increases, evaporative demand also increases, increasing effective drought in forest ecosystems. Using a spatially comprehensive network of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) chronologies from 122 locations that experience distinctly different climate in...
Spatiotemporal patterns of mercury accumulation in lake sediments of western North America
Paul Drevnick, Colin A. Cooke, Daniella Barraza, Jules M. Blais, Kenneth Coale, Brian F. Cumming, Chris Curtis, Biplob Das, William F. Donahue, Collin A. Eagles-Smith, Daniel R. Engstrom, William F. Fitzgerald, Chad V. Furl, John R. Gray, Roland I. Hall, Togwell A. Jackson, Kathleen R. Laird, W. Lyle Lockhart, Robie W. Macdonald, M. Alisa Mast, Callie Mathieu, Derek C.G. Muir, Peter Outridge, Scott Reinemann, Sarah E. Rothenberg, Ana Carolina Ruiz-Fernandex, V.L. St. Louis, Rhea Sanders, Hamed Sanei, Elliott Skierszkan, Peter C. Van Metre, Timothy Veverica, Johan A. Wiklund, Brent B. Wolfe
2016, Science of the Total Environment (568) 1157-1170
For the Western North America Mercury Synthesis, we compiled mercury records from 165 dated sediment cores from 138 natural lakes across western North America. Lake sediments are accepted as faithful recorders of historical mercury accumulation rates, and regional and sub-regional temporal and spatial trends were...
Threshold sensitivity of shallow Arctic lakes and sublake permafrost to changing winter climate
Christopher D. Arp, Benjamin M. Jones, Guido Grosse, Allen C. Bondurant, Vladimir E. Romanovksy, Kenneth M. Hinkel, Andrew D. Parsekian
2016, Geophysical Research Letters (43) 6358-6365
Interactions and feedbacks between abundant surface waters and permafrost fundamentally shape lowland Arctic landscapes. Sublake permafrost is maintained when the maximum ice thickness (MIT) exceeds lake depth and mean annual bed temperatures (MABTs) remain below freezing. However, declining MIT since the 1970s is likely causing talik development below...
Effects of Lead Exposure, Environmental Conditions, and Metapopulation Processes on Population Dynamics of Spectacled Eiders.
Paul L. Flint, J. Barry Grand, Margaret R. Petersen, Robert F. Rockwell
2016, North American Fauna (81) 1-41
Spectacled eider Somateria fischeri numbers have declined and they are considered threatened in accordance with the US Endangered Species Act throughout their range. We synthesized the available information for spectacled eiders to construct deterministic, stochastic, and metapopulation models for this species that incorporated current estimates of vital rates such as...
Genome sequence of a novel H14N7 subtype influenza A virus isolated from a blue-winged teal (Anas discors) harvested in Texas, USA
Andrew M. Ramey, Andrew B. Reeves, Rebecca L. Poulson, Deborah L. Carter, Nicholas Davis-Fields, David E. Stallknecht
2016, Genome Announcements (4)
We report here the complete genome sequence of a novel H14N7 subtype influenza A virus (IAV) isolated from a blue-winged teal (Anas discors) harvested in Texas, USA. The genomic characteristics of this IAV strain with a previously undetected subtype combination suggest recent viral evolution within the New World wild-bird IAV...
Waterfowl populations are resilient to immediate and lagged impacts of wildfires in the boreal forest
Tyler Lewis, Joel A. Schmutz, Courtney L. Amundson, Mark S. Lindberg
2016, Journal of Applied Ecology (53)
Summary 1. Wildfires are the principal disturbance in the boreal forest, and their size and frequency are increasing as the climate warms. Impacts of fires on boreal wildlife are largely unknown, especially for the tens of millions of waterfowl that breed in the region. This knowledge gap creates significant barriers...
Surface water connectivity drives richness and composition of Arctic lake fish assemblages
Sarah M. Laske, Trevor B. Haynes, Amanda E. Rosenberger, Joshua C. Koch, Mark S. Wipfli, Matthew Whitman, Christian E. Zimmerman
2016, Freshwater Biology (61) 1090-1104
Surface water connectivity can influence the richness and composition of fish assemblages, particularly in harsh environments where colonisation factors and access to seasonal refugia are required for species persistence. Studies regarding influence of connectivity on Arctic fish distributions are limited and are rarely applied to whole assemblage patterns....
The geochemical atlas of Alaska, 2016
Gregory K. Lee, Douglas B. Yager, Jeffrey L. Mauk, Matthew Granitto, Paul Denning, Bronwen Wang, Melanie B. Werdon
2016, Data Series 908
A rich legacy of geochemical data produced since the early 1960s covers the great expanse of Alaska; careful treatment of such data may provide significant and revealing geochemical maps that may be used for landscape geochemistry, mineral resource exploration, and geoenvironmental investigations over large areas. To maximize the spatial density...
Elements in whole blood of Northwestern Crows (Corvus caurinus) in Alaska: No evidence for an association with beak deformities
Caroline R. Van Hemert, Colleen M. Handel
2016, Journal of Wildlife Diseases (52) 713-718
A recent outbreak of beak deformities among resident birds in Alaska has raised concern about environmental contamination as a possible underlying factor. We measured whole blood concentrations of 30 essential and nonessential elements to determine whether any were associated with beak deformities in Northwestern Crows (Corvus caurinus). We tested for...
Evidence for the exchange of blood parasites between North America and the Neotropics in blue-winged teal (Anas discors)
Andrew M. Ramey, John A. Reed, Patrick Walther, Paul Link, Joel A. Schmutz, David C. Douglas, David E. Stallknecht, Catherine Soos
2016, Parasitology Research (115) 3923-3939
Blue-winged teal (Anas discors) are abundant, small-bodied dabbling ducks that breed throughout the prairies of the northcentral USA and central Canada and that winter in the southern USA and northern Neotropics. Given the migratory tendencies of this species, it is plausible that blue-winged teal may disperse avian pathogens,...
Wildfire risk as a socioecological pathology
A. Paige Fischer, Thomas A. Spies, Toddi A Steelman, Cassandra Moseley, Bart R. Johnson, John D. Bailey, Alan A Ager, Patrick S. Bourgeron, Susan Charnley, Brandon M. Collins, Jeffrey D Kline, Jessica E Leahy, Jeremy S. Littell, James D. A. Millington, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Christine S Olsen, Travis B Paveglio, Christopher I. Roos, Michelle M Steen-Adams, Forrest R Stevens, Jelena Vukomanovic, Eric M White, David M J S Bowman
2016, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (14) 276-284
Wildfire risk in temperate forests has become a nearly intractable problem that can be characterized as a socioecological “pathology”: that is, a set of complex and problematic interactions among social and ecological systems across multiple spatial and temporal scales. Assessments of wildfire risk could benefit from recognizing and accounting for...
Models for ecological models: Ocean primary productivity
Christopher K. Wikle, William B. Leeds, Mevin Hooten
2016, CHANCE (29) 23-30
The ocean accounts for more than 70% of planet Earth's surface, and it processes are critically important to marine and terrestrial life. Ocean ecosystems are strongly dependent on the physical state of the ocean (e.g., transports, mixing, upwelling, runoff, and ice dynamics(. As an example, consider the Coastal Gulf of...
Late Pleistocene and Holocene tephrostratigraphy of interior Alaska and Yukon: Key beds and chronologies over the past 30,000 years
Lauren J. Davies, Britta J.L. Jensen, Duane G. Froese, Kristi L. Wallace
2016, Quaternary Science Reviews (146) 28-53
The Aleutian Arc-Alaska Peninsula and Wrangell volcanic field are the main source areas for tephra deposits found across Alaska and northern Canada, and increasingly, <a class="topic-link" title="Learn more about tephra...
A primer on potential impacts, management priorities, and future directions for Elodea spp. in high latitude systems: learning from the Alaskan experience
Michael P. Carey, Suresh A Sethi, Sabrina J Larsen, Cecil F Rich
2016, Hydrobiologia (777) 1-19
Invasive species introductions in Arctic and Subarctic ecosystems are growing as climate change manifests and human activity increases in high latitudes. The aquatic plants of the genus Elodea are potential invaders to Arctic and Subarctic ecosystems circumpolar and at least one species is already established in Alaska, USA. To illustrate...
Identification of landscape features influencing gene flow: How useful are habitat selection models?
Gretchen H. Roffler, Michael K. Schwartz, Kristy L. Pilgrim, Sandra L. Talbot, George K. Sage, Layne G. Adams, Gordon Luikart
2016, Evolutionary Applications (9) 805-817
Understanding how dispersal patterns are influenced by landscape heterogeneity is critical for modeling species connectivity. Resource selection function (RSF) models are increasingly used in landscape genetics approaches. However, because the ecological factors that drive habitat selection may be different from those influencing dispersal and gene flow, it is important to...
Evidence for common ancestry among viruses isolated from wild birds in Beringia and highly pathogenic intercontinental reassortant H5N1 and H5N2 influenza A viruses
Andrew M. Ramey, Andrew B. Reeves, Joshua L. Teslaa, Sean W. Nashold, Tyrone F. Donnelly, Justin Bahl, Jeffrey S. Hall
2016, Infection, Genetics and Evolution (40) 176-185
Highly pathogenic clade 2.3.4.4 H5N8, H5N2, and H5N1 influenza A viruses were first detected in wild, captive, and domestic birds in North America in November–December 2014. In this study, we used wild waterbird samples collected in Alaska prior to the initial detection of clade 2.3.4.4 H5 influenza A viruses in...
Natural disturbance shapes benthic intertidal macroinvertebrate communities of high latitude river deltas
Roy T. Churchwell, Steve J. Kendall, Amy L. Blanchard, Kenneth H. Dunton, Abby N. Powell
2016, Estuaries and Coasts (39) 798-814
Unlike lower latitude coastlines, the estuarine nearshore zones of the Alaskan Beaufort Sea are icebound and frozen up to 9 months annually. This annual freezing event represents a dramatic physical disturbance to fauna living within intertidal sediments. The main objectives of this study were to describe the benthic communities of Beaufort...
Shifts in the distribution of molting Spectacled Eiders (Somateria fischeri) indicate ecosystem change in the Arctic
Matthew G. Sexson, Margaret R. Petersen, Greg A. Breed, Abby N. Powell
2016, The Condor (118) 463-476
Shifts in the distribution of benthivorous predators provide an indication of underlying environmental changes in benthic-mediated ecosystems. Spectacled Eiders (Somateria fischeri) are benthivorous sea ducks that spend the nonbreeding portion of their annual cycle in the Bering, Chukchi, Beaufort, and East Siberian seas. Sea ducks generally molt in biologically...
Trophic pathways supporting juvenile Chinook and Coho salmon in the glacial Susitna River, Alaska: patterns of freshwater, marine, and terrestrial resource use across a seasonally dynamic habitat mosaic
Kristin M. Rine, Mark S. Wipfli, Erik R. Schoen, Timothy L. Nightengale, Craig A. Stricker
2016, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences (73) 1626-1641
Contributions of terrestrial-, freshwater-, and marine-derived prey resources to stream fishes vary over time and space, altering the energy pathways that regulate production. In this study, we determined large-scale use of these resources by juvenile Chinook and coho salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha and Oncorhynchus kisutch, respectively) in the glacial Susitna River,...
Evidence of multiple thermokarst lake generations from an 11800-year-old permafrost core on the northern Seward Peninsula, Alaska
Josefine Lenz, Sebastian Wetterich, Benjamin M. Jones, Hanno Meyer, Anatoly Bobrov, Guido Grosse
2016, Boreas (45) 584-603
Permafrost degradation influences the morphology, biogeochemical cycling and hydrology of Arctic landscapes over a range of time scales. To reconstruct temporal patterns of early to late Holocene permafrost and thermokarst dynamics, site-specific palaeo-records are needed. Here we present a multi-proxy study of a 350-cm-long permafrost...
Gene transcript profiling in sea otters post-Exxon Valdez oil spill: A tool for marine ecosystem health assessment
Lizabeth Bowen, A. Keith Miles, Brenda E. Ballachey, Shannon C. Waters, James L. Bodkin
2016, Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (4)
Using a panel of genes stimulated by oil exposure in a laboratory study, we evaluated gene transcription in blood leukocytes sampled from sea otters captured from 2006–2012 in western Prince William Sound (WPWS), Alaska, 17–23 years after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill (EVOS). We compared WPWS sea otters to reference...
Baseline and projected future carbon storage and greenhouse-gas fluxes in ecosystems of Alaska
Zhiliang Zhu, A. David McGuire, editor(s)
2016, Professional Paper 1826
This assessment was conducted to fulfill the requirements of section 712 of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and to contribute to knowledge of the storage, fluxes, and balance of carbon and methane gas in ecosystems of Alaska. The carbon and methane variables were examined for major terrestrial...
Palaeodata-informed modelling of large carbon losses from recent burning of boreal forests
Ryan Kelly, Helene Genet, A. David McGuire, Feng Sheng Hu
2016, Nature Climate Change (6) 79-82
Wildfires play a key role in the boreal forest carbon cycle1, <a id="ref-link-2" title="Bond-Lamberty, B., Peckham, S. D., Ahl,...
Trophic dynamics of shrinking Subarctic lakes: naturally eutrophic waters impart resilience to rising nutrient and major ion concentrations
Tyler Lewis, Mark S. Lindberg, Joel A. Schmutz, Patricia J. Heglund, Joshua H. Schmidt, Adam J. Dubour, Jennifer R. Rover, Mark R. Bertram
2016, Oecologia (181) 583-596
Shrinking lakes were recently observed for several Arctic and Subarctic regions due to increased evaporation and permafrost degradation. Along with lake drawdown, these processes often boost aquatic chemical concentrations, potentially impacting trophic dynamics. In particular, elevated chemical levels may impact primary productivity, which may in turn influence populations of primary...
Lithium brines: A global perspective
LeeAnn Munk, Scott Hynek, Dwight Bradley, David Boutt, Keith A. Labay, Hillary Jochens
Philip L. Verplanck, Murray W. Hitzman, editor(s)
2016, Book chapter, Rare earth and critical elements in ore deposits
Lithium is a critical and technologically important element that has widespread use, particularly in batteries for hybrid cars and portable electronic devices. Global demand for lithium has been on the rise since the mid-1900s and is projected to...
